Phase Two

A terrible mood overtook me today, but terrible moods are often good moods for writing, so I'm going to get something out of the storm clouds in my head.

I don't understand the people who can stand fall, the season, that is. It is crunchy, russet-colored death. I don't exaggerate here at all. Fall is when everything dies! I mean, look around you next time someone makes you throw on your favorite hoodie (The hoodie being just one of fall's evil brood) to go outside and admire the leaves. Above you will stretch barren tree trunks like pieces of dead hair. "But oh that autumn smell!" you might say. Yeah, that's called decay, the very same process by which bodies become dirt. I know this is all kind of macabre, but I couldn't get these thoughts out of my head when I realized what day it was, the autumnal equinox. I even hate that word, "autumn." It has that strong "a" sound at the front, the same pretentious syllable that British school masters chide their students with, "You aught not to do that!" There's even a conceited branch of music that labels itself as "autumnal sounding," i.e. Death Cab for Cutie, one of the few bands that I just can't stand. Each member has the charisma of a rusty nail and a permanent frown. Stevie Wonder cuts their hair, and their "artsy" horn-rimmed glasses, which by now are so ridiculously popular that their existence has become foul irony -something that was supposed to mark individualism now made by the truckload and shipped to every reality starved, self-professed world weary "dreamer," who immerses himself in what he can only guess to be art- bug the hell out of me. And their music is so boring, so boring, so boring, so boring. But that's why it's so good for autumn. That's why it's "autumnal." That's why people are supposed to download it to their ipod and go walk amongst the dead things. It's fall's soundtrack. Well, fuck that.

Something else about autumn. There is NOTHING to look forward to. Every bright day in June holds the door for another . Autumn days only bring you closer to winter, to cold and darkness, while the sun rises later and later and sets sooner and sooner. When I hear people shout, "Oh what an awesome day!" in October, I'm reminded of this fact and become angry. It's like remarking, "Oh what a beautiful house," on the way to the guillotine. Those last couple of decent days are anomalies, tragically confused mixtures of climate and cloud cover that serve only to bring us pain as we zip up our jackets in anticipation for the end of the year.

I know I've said some awful, not to mention overly grotesque, things about what might be people's favorite season, band, and fashion article, and if I offend anyone for this, I'm sorry. I would say that it's just the way I feel if I were even certain of that. It's this mood that's pressing these keys, and since it's so intent on getting all this down, I'm allowing it to. I have a Death Cab album on my computer, I think.

And that brings me to my next point. I'm just a stupid mess. What I like, what I don't-things that are supposed to matter to me- just don't seem to count for anything anymore. Truth is, I've spent so much time with school and learning, that I've forgotten what I want out of the sixty or so years I have left here. Is it possible to lose yourself? I mean PHYSICALLY lose yourself? To have your soul just run away without looking back, leaving only what you SHOULD like, SHOULD do, SHOULD care about to serve as the glue holding you together? I've tried to sacrifice myself to grow up, like I thought all people must do to fully belong to a world so much larger than themselves, but it ended up being a very childish mistake, and maybe one that could keep my life mired in depression for awhile. I MADE myself like science, which I've always thought and might always think to be the world's only salvation, thoroughly drowning everything I thought to be selfish inside of me. What difference did it make if couldn't stand writing lab reports? The world is always one lab report away from feeding ten million starving people. But now, gradually, the wraith of personality left in me is drifting towards the surface and causing a lot of mental hell in the process.

I'm more alone than ever here. Maybe it's just a guy thing, but there seems to be an invisible wall around us all. The wall has one hole for a cord to run between two phones on each side of the wall. Through the wire race snippets of laughter, questions, exclamations, compliments, and stories, but the sender and reciever of them could be as far away as the North and South poles. To quote Patrick Bateman, I'm just simply "not there." When I think about it, I've never really had anyone that could just clap me on the shoulder and tell me exactly what I was thinking, what my face looked like on the other side of the wall while I chortled, shouted, and sighed with deceit. I've had good friends, great friends, sure, but they were all great without really breaking the glass wall, and I've never been upset about that until now. In fact, I always kind of liked the isolation I kept myself hidden in, a sort of cloud to float me above the others so that I could view them, objectively and truthfully, while at the same time generating the same sort of trepidation that said clouds do. No one ever knew if I was going to burst with lightning or life giving water, whether I'd just pass or hover a bit over them, as if interested. I liked being a little mysterious, maybe because it fueled my imagination, as might be evident frome this cloud metaphor (haha, who do I think I am!? Next I'll be a burning bush!).


Phase two starts the day I feel goose bumps on my leg, September 22. From here until March, I'll be relatively moody, petulant, illogical, paranoid, self-righteous, lonely, judgemental, suspicious, and, of course, cold as hell. Lucky you.